An Assassin's Ledger
by Alyxx
Summary: Life's most important lesson is that whatever you do you must learn to live with it and keep moving. Some people never forgive themselves, some work for redemption even though they feel they don't deserve it. And out of those people a few lucky ones succeed, perhaps one day a certain red ledger will only be a very light shade of pink.


An Assassins Ledger.

Life's most important lesson is that whatever you do you must learn to live with it and keep moving. Some people never forgive themselves, some work for redemption even though they feel they don't deserve it. And out of those people a few lucky ones succeed, perhaps one day a certain red ledger will only be a very light shade of pink.

Natasha Romanoff woke up early one morning having once more been plagued by nightmares from her past. She got up and went to the gym knowing she wouldn't get anymore sleep. Then something occurred to her, because of her sleep deprived brain she went along with her idea, of course she knew she would regret it later. And so she walked down the corridors of the hub, where she was currently living in the on base quarters, and to the door marked Dr Trifton. He was SHIELD'S best shrink and quite frankly she hated the man. Still she knocked on the door and opened it when she heard a quiet 'Come in.' from the other side.

"Agent Romanoff? I must say you are the last person I ever expected to see here, or well ever." He said quite obviously rattled and confused

"Hi, I know this may seem strange since I've avoided this entire section of the facility for the last seven years and even tried to kill you once but umm, can we talk?" Natasha asks hesitantly.

"Yes of course Agent Romanoff, please have a seat." He responds and so she comes in to the office, closes the door and sits down on the couch. "What's the matter?" he asks, if only she thought he knew the magnitude of that question, and so she decided to make him aware. She was already here she might as well dive into the deep end and hope she doesn't drown.

"I've been having nightmares for… ever, they've been getting worse since I joined SHIELD and started attempting to wipe my ledger clean. I haven't slept more than two hours all together in the last week, I think the sleep deprivation is part of why I even thought coming here was a good idea, but anyway yeah." She says beginning to ramble, well it was out there now she thought. He looked at her for a minute, the black widow just walked into his office willingly with no one talking to her about it, sat down actually spoke and about her problems. He was surprised but honestly glad.

"What are your nightmares about?" He asks carefully not wanting her to leave before he had a chance to try and help, this was a rare opportunity and he doubted he'd get the chance to help her again.

"Just so we're clear none of this leaves this room and no one ever has to find out I came down here?" She asks and he nods, so she takes a deep breath and begins again. "They're about my past, about the people I've killed and the things I've done to people, but also about the things that have been done to me." She says, he realises that that didn't tell him anything he didn't already know but at least she answered him.

"If you don't want to or can't that's absolutely fine and completely understandable but can you try to be more specific?" he asks giving her every out he can in case she needs it.

"Well, as you probably know I was trained when I was a little girl and tortured quite badly my whole life, my first kill was when I was six. She was a girl my age I still don't know why they wanted her dead but I slit her throat accidently in front of her mother whom I also had to kill now. After that I kept killing and refused all emotions. Every now and then though the nightmares come but they go again in a month or so, but since I've been at SHIELD for years now they haven't stopped since I joined." She explains.

"Agent Romanoff," Dr Trifton began after several moments of silence, "The reason they haven't stopped is because you've created such a huge task that you've put too much pressure on yourself. What I'm about to ask of you will be difficult, but I want you to write a list of everyone you have killed. Then write a list of everyone you have saved. Keep adding to both as time goes on. When the latter overtakes the former, your ledger is wiped. Just take it one name at a time. There are also some short term things we could try to help ease the nightmares since I know you don't like taking pills." He informs her and she nods though she appears to be in deep thought. About a minute later she nods more noticeably.

"Alright, I think I can do that." She replies though it sounds a little forced.

"I would also like you to come by and talk even if only for a few minutes every day except of course missions. I'm here till the end of working hours but I get here very early for just such an occasion. Anytime the nightmares wake you up, come tell me about them in as much detail as you are comfortable with and don't push yourself to tell more if you don't fell you can. Know that I won't judge you if you can't." He tells her and she nods. She gets up and is about to leave before she turns around.

"Thankyou doctor." She says and he nods. She heads out wondering what she was thinking when she went down there. Talking about it had brought up unwanted memories so she did as he asked and wrote the two lists, she was pleasantly surprised that they were nearly balanced.

Later that day she went into the cafeteria to meet Barton as she usually did.

"Hey Clint." She says more cheerfully than he had ever seen her, last night she realised that while she has a lot of work to do before she's done, her lists are balanced enough that she could sleep, and so she slept more last night than she had in one night the whole time he had known her.

"Hey Nat, you okay? Something seems different?" He questioned.

"Nope, same old same old." She lied not quite ready to admit the truth.

Over the next few weeks she went to Dr Trifton every day and Clint still didn't know, nor did anyone else. Natasha found she was happier than she has ever been her entire life, she was sleeping more and beating the crap out of a punching bag less. She also found that when on missions she was noticing more non-lethal ways of dealing with situations and saving more people, she was saving people but soon realised she wasn't doing it for the ledger anymore, she was doing it for the people. Because when a person notices someone else in trouble they help, she was not the monster she always thought she was. And so the day after she realised this she went to Dr Trifton again and told him as such.

"Natasha this is great news, I have seen a massive change in you over the last couple of weeks, and how are the lists looking?" he asked her. She smiled even wider.

"Nearly level, I've nearly done it!" She states proudly.

"Yes, you nearly have." He replies. "Now Natasha, today I hate to spoil your good mood but there is something I must ask though I realise you may not be able to answer." He begins, her smile falters but only for a second.

"Go ahead and ask." She responds.

"What happened to you growing up?" he asks boldly. She sighs and runs her hand through her hair before remaining quite still and silent for a few minutes, he was starting to regret asking before she said something.

"Ok, I'll tell you, I'm ready." She says confidently before for the very first time began to tell her tale of lies and kills and torture and betrayal. When she finished she was crying and Dr Trifton was rubbing her back, though both realised that for that ti be happening telling her story must have helped her a lot. That night she slept better than she did her entire life and had some very lovely and pleasant dreams.

The next day she was in a briefing with Fury and the other Avengers, while they all waited for Fury to arrive Tony turned to her.

"Alright little red tell me, what's been going on with you the last couple of months coz my theories range from pregnancy to crazy demigod taking over your brain and making you happier." He says quietly.

"Well I'm not pregnant and definitely no crazy demigods so did you ever think that maybe I'm just happier instead of drowning in guilt?" She asks him. He smiles at her.

"Yes I did, just wanted to know if you'd admit it, I'm glad Nat." he says before turning to Fury who had just walked in. Fury briefed them on a mission they were going on that would take a few days. Since starting her therapy Natasha hadn't gone a full day without speaking to Dr Trifton, who she found out's first name was Chris, she wasn't sure she'd be okay four days on her own. She spoke to Dr Trifton about it two hours before they had to leave.

"Well Natasha, you could tell Fury the truth, you could refuse the mission and have them asking questions, I could tell Fury the truth or you can go on the mission." He says giving her options when she had explained what's going on to him. In the end Natasha decided to go. During the mission she saved several people and killed no one, when she got back she was happy to only have to add to one of the lists and realised it had been that way for two weeks. The next time she spoke to Dr Trifton they moved to a slightly different subject.

"So Natasha, how are your relationships with you fellow Avengers?" Dr Trifton asked her.

"Pretty good, Tony and I have become quite good friends and Clint's introduced me to his friend from outside of SHIELD who introduced me to his wife. The two of us have caught up for coffee a few times and it's nice." She informs him.

"That's great Natasha, making friends with people outside of SHIELD will probably make you feel less alone. Now tell me, what about Thor, Dr Banner and Captain Rogers?" he asks.

"Well, Thor and I get along but we aren't close simply because we have nothing in common, except for our love of beating Clint at Mario cart which we do often. And I've been a little skittish around Dr Banner since I was chased through the helicarier by the Hulk." Natasha admits and so they talk about that for a while and she agrees to speak to Dr Banner about this.

"Alright, now that we've handled that to an extent, what about Captain Rogers?" He asks, she blushes slightly.

"What about him?" she asks feigning ignorance, but he just looks at her.

"I'm a therapist Natasha I can read emotion, also it doesn't help you much when you blush like that." He says pointing to her cheek.

"Alright, so I may find certain qualities attractive and he may or may not possess all of them. Plus he's quite handsome." She says adding the last part in as an afterthought.

"Natasha, the fact that you have romantic feelings for someone is a good thing, after your childhood you shut that part of yourself down completely but it's resurfaced. This is really great progress." He says joyfully. After leaving the good doctor's office she heads to the tower in the hopes that Bruce may be there, thankfully he is in the lab with Tony which is the first place she looked.

"Hey Bruce, can I talk to you for a sec?" she asks, he nods and they head to the corridor where they have a conversation about how Natasha's been feeling since the incident with The Hulk a year ago. He had felt guilty about it but when they talked they worked out some ways to make Natasha more comfortable and by the end he was extremely glad she had come to him. Later that day he called Barton, Natasha had said that a friend suggested she talk to him so Bruce is assuming it was Clint.

"Hey Banner what's up?" Clint asks as he answers the phone.

"I just wanted to thankyou for getting Natasha to talk to me." Bruce explains.

"What are you talking about?" Clint asks confused.

"It wasn't you? She said a friend got her to talk to me so I assumed it was you." Bruce says.

"Well, have you asked Tony? They have gotten pretty close in the last few months." Clint suggests.

"Yeah I might do that, well thanks Clint see you." Bruce says.

"Bye." Clint responds and the two hang up both wondering who Natasha's mysterious friend might be.

A few months later they were no closer to finding out. Everyone continued to see Natasha's moods improving and she seemed to be a whole lot more self-confident, when Tony mocked her instead of threatening his life she simply mocked him back.

"So, Natasha how did you sleep?" Dr Trifton asks noticing she seems more tired than she has in a while.

"Not great." She answers shortly, the kind of answer he would have expected from her months ago when she first started coming to him.

"Why, what happened?" he asked her.

"I had a nightmare." She said evidently sticking with the short answers.

"Why didn't you come to me?" he asks realising that until he makes her more comfortable he won't find out what she had dreamed about.

"Because I was too shaky to walk, but I called Barton and he came over and calmed me down, he just didn't know what to do to help me to sleep again and I was too scared to think to do it." Natasha explains sadly.

"What was the nightmare about? Your childhood?" Dr Trifton asks but is surprised when Natasha shakes her head. "What then?" He asks gently.

"New York." She explains and he nods, he'd been expecting this for a while now.

"I see, you know it's perfectly understandable after a battle like that that you'd dream about it." Dr Trifton says reassuringly.

"I know I just have to much experience with nightmares, I had to live through the horrors of my life I don't want to live through them again." She admits.

"Natasha, nightmares are caused when you have some sort of severe negative emotion towards something. So the more you let it affect you the more they will come, of course when the purpose of the nightmare is to scare the crap out of you it's a bit hard not to react. What you need to remember is that New York is over, your team came out physically almost unscathed. The more you allow yourself to believe that, the less dreams you will have about it." Dr Trifton explains and she nods. "So have you spoken to Captain Rogers?" He asks on a lighter note. She looks at him, or more like glares, but in a friendly way.

"You know, I think that's enough for today." He says and she smiles.

"No I haven't spoken to him nor do I plan to." Natasha tells him seriously, this time he just looks at her. "Don't look at me like that Trifton, I said no." She exclaims, he rolls his eyes.

"Fine, suit yourself." He said in a way that made her nervous. But she left soon after that, she walked to the gym to do some training. She walked in and found Barton there.

"Hey Clint, how are you?" she asks, he was beginning to get used to perky Natasha but ever time she asks him that it sends shivers down his spine.

"I'm fine, how are you?" he answers as he always does.

"I'm good thanks." Natasha replies, she had started actually honestly answering that question about a month ago scaring the crap out of Fury, and everyone else.

"So where have you been? You keep disappearing, sometimes for fifteen minutes sometimes for hours." He says though he knows what her answer will be.

"Just in a meeting." She replies as she always does. Barton left the gym ten minutes later but Natasha stayed to do her training, five minutes after Barton left a young woman entered the room who walks up to her.

"Hi, I don't know who you are and this will seem odd but in a second a very angry agent is going to walk through that door, please don't tell him I'm here." She pleads before running into the locker room, just in the nick of time to because then the door opened and a familiar face walked in looking pissed off.

"SKYE!?" Agent Grant Ward yelled as he enetered the room. "Ahh, Agent Romanoff, have you seen a young woman around here? Light brown hair, brown eyes, looks more like a child than an agent." He says the last part louder clearly trying to bait her.

"No, sorry Agent Ward no one has come in here in the last ten minutes." Romanoff lied, he looked suspiciously at her for a moment before smirking.

"Well, if the Black Widow, one of the Avengers who knows Iron Man aka Tony Stark says so than I guess it's true." He says rather loudly. A few minutes later with no response he left. Natasha headed to the gym locker room where she found the girl sitting on a seat with a red face, holding her breath and looking like she's in pain.

"Skye right?" she asks and the girl nods. She seems to attempt to calm down before she allows herself to breathe again. "Are you okay?" Natasha asks.

"Yeaaah." Skye says shakily while grinning crazily. "You're Natasha Romanoff? The Black Widow?" she asks in a squeaky voice, Natasha now knew what was going on.

"Ahh, yes I am. And you are?" Natasha asks. The girl seems to snap out of it and stand up.

"I'm Skye, I'm a consultant with SHIELD, agent Ward is my S.O." she explains.

"Oh, where are you stationed?" Natasha asks curiously, she liked this girl.

"The bus." Skye responds.

"The what now?" Natasha asks.

"The bus, it's a mobile command unit run by Agent Coulson." Skye replies.

"Oh, Could you show me where the bus is?" Agent Romanoff requests at the mention of a dead agents name.

"Sure, but do me a favour and tell Ward I spent this time training with you." Skye pleads and Natasha nods. So the two walk off together to the bus, when they get there Skye takes Natasha up to Coulson's office before leaving her outside the office and heading back down to the living area. Natasha knocks on the door.

"Come in." Coulson says on the other side. So she walks in walks over to him and stands there waiting for him to look up. "Yes?" he asks before looking up. "Natasha?" Coulson asks frightened, she was so glad to see him but didn't want to get Skye in trouble.

"Phil, I heard your plane had landed here so I thought I'd stop by, haven't seen you in a year." She states happily. "It's good to see you again, everyone's missed you, even Tony." She continues.

"You knew?" He asks incredulously.

"I'm me Phil, of course I knew. I'm glad you're alive." She lies and he gets up walks around his desk and hugs her.

"Something's changed about you, I can tell." Coulson says.

"I have red on my ledger, but it's nice that I've made a lot of progress on wiping it out." Natasha states shocking Coulson. A few months later Natasha gets back from a mission and immediately goes to bed, when she gets up the next morning she realises she forgot to add to her lists, thankfully only adding to one of them, after adfing three names of the people she had saved she realised she was level with the other list, after finishing adding the thirteen names of the group she saved she was ten names above the amount of people she had killed, she had done it. Her ledger was clean! Well she ran out that room and down the hall way to Dr Trifton's office knocking on the door and walking in when he said Come in.

"Ahh, Natasha, you're back from your mission, how'd it go?" he asks expecting good new as she looks extremely happy, excited, giddy even.

"Oh, quite horribly, Barton nearly died, twice." She informs him.

"Then what's with the extremely ecstatic attitude?" he asks. So she hands over the list, he looks over it for a second before looking up at her wide eyed, he started smiling, then laughing before running up hugging her and twirling her around.

"Thank you Chris, I understand now that the lists didn't do anything but give me something to work towards before I realised that I was wiping my ledger clean without them." She says happily.

"Oh Natasha, your ledger has been clean a lot longer than you think." He exclaims putting her down but not breaking the hug, they both knew they were only friends and neither were interested in the other so it made no difference. Then the soor opened and Barton was heard complaining.

"You aren't making Tasha go, c'mon Hill have a heart." He whines.

"You know perfectly well why Agent Romanoff isn't here." Hill replies before they both looks up.

"I'm missing something." Barton says dumbly.

"Hill, I quit." Natasha says happily, she knew this wasn't what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

"Say what now?" Hill asks just as shocked and confused.

"I quit, I kept this job because I had a debt to repay, and a ledger to clean. Well that debt has long since been repaid and my ledger is clean." Natasha says and Hill just walks over and hugs her.

"How long?" Hill asks realising Natasha had taken herself to therapy.

"A year and a few months." Natasha replied.

"Well, I suppose you should go inform Fury." Hill responds, Natasha nods and practically skips down the hall way.

"Thank you Dr Trifton." Hill says and Dr Trifton nods.

"Now, Agent Barton, what seems to be the problem?" He asks.

"Hell no." Barton says before walking out of the office leaving Dr Trifton chuckling behind him.

Meanwhile in Fury's office, "What the hell do you mean you quit?" Fury asks confused as fuck.

"I mean, I'm done, I don't want to be a spy and I refuse to be an assassin, I won't be a seductress again. I'm going to go live in the real world, find a passion of mine and use it. I can't do that here and so I quit." Natasha explains, Fury looked almost pleased, almost.

"Well Agent Romanoff, while I'll be lets go with sad to see you go, I understand and accept your resignation." Fury says. Natasha nods and hands over her gun. She got out her badge and looked at it one more time before handing that over as well.

THREE YEARS LATER

"Hey Natasha." Millie Connolly said to her friend as they both arrived at training at the same time.

"Hey Millie, how's life?" Natasha asks, it was Natasha's first time back after maternity leave.

"Pretty good, how's the new little boy?" Millie asked

"Well, I'm glad to be back at Ballet, and in time to catch up before the next bug performance, Steve is like a walking zombie just like after Peggy was born. Peggy is si excited to have a little brother and Chris, well he's a baby, he eats sleeps and poos. But he seems to adore his Uncle Bruce." Natasha replies.

"Well, tell everyone I said hi." Millie said before running out on stage.

"I will." Natasha said to the empty room unable to believe how lucky she was. Not only had she truly forgiven herself and stopped feeling guilty for her life, but she became a ballerina as she wanted to, now had two kids, two year old Peggy Skye Rogers and new born baby Chris Bucharean Rogers, and she had a husband, Steve. She was surrounded by friends and family and her biggest worry was Tony deciding he would build her kids a suit. No more life or death situations, now her life was domestic, civilian and bliss.


End file.
